


Moment of Serenity

by EllieL



Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV), All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness
Genre: F/M, Matthew POV, The Shadow of Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-03 19:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16331930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieL/pseuds/EllieL
Summary: In fifteen hundred years, there was nothing Matthew had wanted so much as what Diana was offering him.Set during The Shadow of Night, at a key moment in Prague





	Moment of Serenity

In fifteen hundred years, there was nothing Matthew had wanted so much as what Diana was offering him.

The guileless look of love as she bared herself to him and threaded her fingers through his already tousled hair should have been enough. He’d spent the better part of a year trying to convince himself of that fact. But that time had also been spent with her intoxicatingly close, honey and chamomile drifting dizzyingly through his world so that most night he could not trust himself to rest next to her in bed, adjourning to his office after she fell asleep to keep the temptation at bay. The smoky, dirty smells of men’s letters on war and death were almost enough to make him forget the fresh willowy scent that clung to his shirt.

“I love you,” she whispered, and it should have been enough. But he’d listened to a millenium of troubadours and poets, even sung and spoken the words himself, believed them to be true. Until he’d met this woman, this witch, he’d thought they were. Did she truly know what those words meant? Desperately, he wanted to believe she did.

 He’d fed from her once before, to save himself, and had nearly killed her. He knew how she would taste, but he had drunk of her to live, not to join, to mate. Would he be able to stop himself this time?

He rested his head in the crook of her neck, breathing deeply. Her pulse thrummed, threatening to overwhelm him, but it was with desire, not fear. The magic in it sang, just below the surface, veins glowing with it.

“Honey.  You always smell like honey,” he said, wondering that even now, she was without a tang of fear. One minute, he promised himself, no more. He would take what she was offering, but would not put her at risk. 

Lips glided down her soft skin, from collarbone to the heart vein. He felt her sharp intake of breath as his teeth breached her skin. 

 _Magic was desire made real_ , she had said, and he could feel her magic wash through him, intoxicating as nothing else he’d experienced in all his centuries.

Her desire for him. Her love for him.

For it could only be love that suffused his body, warming him as if being embraced from the inside. Nowhere in his long memory was there a feeling of such warmth and belonging. He could lose himself in it, in her warm arms around him and through him.

With a great deal of willpower, he forced himself to pull away, just far enough to look up into her eyes.  Could she feel what he felt? Did she feel this all the time? Not always, her eyes told him, but it was what she felt now, what she wanted him to feel, to know.

“It’s all right, my love,” she whispered.  

He dropped his head back down, giving in for just another moment. Allowing himself to be the one who felt protected, safe, loved. As if she’d woven a cocoon around them, just them. All thoughts of kings and manuscripts, Congregations and covenants, fell from his mind, replaced only with her, in the surety that she loved him just as fiercely, just as protectively, as he loved her.

He wished he could stay in this moment of serenity, and as he pulled away and allowed his bite to close, vowed to do everything in his considerable power so that they both might know this feeling. He wanted to know this again, with her, for the rest of their lives. Gently, he kissed the already closing mark.

Looking up at her face, love shone there in a way no great master he’d ever met had been able to capture, he still felt her all around him. It was a new feeling, after all this time, and he truly felt like a newlywed all over again.

“What did you find?” Tender, in a way no one had been with him in as long as he could remember. One of her fingers caressed his face as she swept back a lock of his hair

“You.  Only you.”  He shifted, his lips meeting hers.

He wished he could envelop her with his love as she had done. He could only show her, allow his body to convey to her his desire, what he could not with words or magic.


End file.
